Today’s Passage: Psalm 111
This short psalm has a hidden architecture: in the original Hebrew, each line begins with the next letter of the alphabet, working all the way from aleph to tav.
Context An acrostic, and a matched pair
Psalm 111 is an acrostic poem, its lines built in order around the entire Hebrew alphabet, a form used elsewhere in the Psalter (most famously in the massive Psalm 119) to signal completeness, praising God from A to Z, in effect. Psalm 111 is also deliberately paired with Psalm 112 immediately following it, sharing the same acrostic form and closely matched language, one psalm describing God, the next describing the person who fears Him.
As you read, hold this: the psalm spends nine verses describing God’s works before it ever tells you what to actually do with that description. The application waits for the very last line.
Psalm 111:1-4 (BSB)
Hallelujah! ¹ I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart in the council of the upright and in the assembly. ² Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them. ³ Splendid and majestic is His work; His righteousness endures forever. ⁴ He has caused His wonders to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and compassionate.
The psalm opens with thanks “with all my heart,” a phrase this whole poem will spend its remaining verses justifying, one attribute of God at a time.
Psalm 111:5-9 (BSB)
⁵ He provides food for those who fear Him; He remembers His covenant forever. ⁶ He has shown His people the power of His works by giving them the inheritance of the nations. ⁷ The works of His hands are truth and justice; all His precepts are trustworthy. ⁸ They are upheld forever and ever, enacted in truth and uprightness. ⁹ He has sent redemption to His people; He has ordained His covenant forever; holy and awesome is His name.
Provision, covenant faithfulness, justice, redemption, each verse adds another concrete reason for the thanks the psalm opened with, moving from abstract praise to specific evidence.
Psalm 111:10 (BSB)
¹⁰ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts gain rich understanding. His praise endures forever!
Word study Fear — yirah (Psalm 111:10)
“Fear” translates יִרְאָה (yirah, yeer-AH) — Strong's H3374, yirah, not primarily terror, but a weighty, reverent awe that takes God’s holiness seriously enough to actually reorder how a person lives. This verse names it as “the beginning of wisdom,” the starting point everything else builds on, not one virtue among many but the foundation the rest of a wise life stands on.
Study notes A line wisdom literature returns to again and again
This psalm’s closing claim is not a one-time saying. The identical line, nearly word for word, opens one of Scripture’s central meditations on wisdom itself.
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Proverbs 9:10 (BSB)
Two different books, in two different genres, land on the identical foundation. Whatever else wisdom includes, knowledge, skill, good judgment, none of it starts anywhere except a genuine, reverent fear of the LORD.
Personal Application
- This psalm spends nine verses describing God’s specific works before ever telling you what to do. Before your next request in prayer, could you spend real time simply naming what God has already done, the way this psalm does?
- Verse 10 calls the fear of the LORD “the beginning” of wisdom, not merely one ingredient among many. Is there an area of your life where you have been pursuing wisdom or good decisions without first grounding it in genuine reverence for God?
Decision of the day: Before making any decision today, however small, pause and ask whether genuine fear of the LORD, not just practical wisdom, is actually shaping your choice.
Pray to Close
The truth to carry from this psalm: real wisdom does not start with cleverness or information. It starts with a genuine, reverent fear of the LORD, the foundation everything else is built on.
Praise: for the LORD whose works are majestic and splendid, whose righteousness endures forever.
Confess: any pursuit of wisdom or success that has not been grounded first in genuine reverence for God.
Ask: for the beginning of true wisdom, a heart that actually fears the LORD.
Worship for Today
How Great Thou Art · Carrie Underwood
This hymn’s own posture, awestruck consideration of God’s majestic works leading directly into worship, “then sings my soul,” mirrors this psalm’s own structure exactly: God’s great works named first, genuine reverence following close behind.
Listen: